Yes, it is time for me to pull together a load of tips if you are a beginner and you want to start photographing buildings. I love creating posts like this were I give you a whole heap of good stuff for you to think about, and to help you get started with something new.
My 50 essential photography tips for beginners who want to photograph buildings
cover
- The camera gear you need to photograph buildings
- The types of buildings you might want to photograph
- How to take photos of buildings
- Tips on processing photos of buildings
- Learning how to photograph buildings
- Learning to love taking photos of buildings
Yes really.
Who am I to tell you this stuff?
I am Rick McEvoy, architectural, construction and real estate photographer. I am also professionally qualified in construction and photography, and have vast experience of both.
And I am also a blogger, writing about photographing buildings on my blog. Well, you should know that as you are reading this.
Oh yes, I am also the creator and all things at the Photography Explained Podcast.
So, I know this stuff, this is what I do. And this list is my list, not the result of a Google search.
Right, let’s get stuck into this little lot.
1 Let’s start with the gear
You need gear to take photos. But the gear that I tell you about here is the base gear that you need to get going. The general rule is this – get the best gear that you can comfortably afford. The amount that you are comfortable spending will depend on your aspirations as a photographer.
Get the camera and lens combo based on what I tell you next, and learn how to use them. And this camera and lens combo is all that I use. Rather than looking at more gear use what you have.
2 Get a camera
I use a Canon 6D. This is a full frame DSLR. If you can get a full frame camera great, but if not a cropped sensor camera is fine, as is a micro four thirds camera. But check out point 2 below.
Get the best camera that you can afford. That is the best advice I can give you.
3 Get a wide-angle lens
Now this is a must. I use a Canon 17-40mm lens, and take most of my photos using the wide 17mm end of things. And with a full frame camera I get the full 17mm.
If you are using a cropped frame camera you need to remember the crop factor.
On a cropped sensor camera, the crop factor is 1.5-1.6, meaning that to get the equivalent of a 17mm focal length you will need an actual focal length of 10-11mm.
And with a micro four thirds camera the crop factor is 2x, meaning that to get the same as me you will need a focal length of 8.5mm.
And the 17mm is the focal length that I use all the time. So, if you can only afford one lens get one that gives you 17mm ish.
4 Tripod
Yes a tripod. I take most of my photos with my camera on a tripod. And I recommend that you do the same. Why? Well, you will get better, sharper photos. And I find that my compositions improve when I take photos on a tripod.
5 Tripod Head
Now the right tripod head will help massively. I used a geared tripod head, meaning that I can fine tune compositions to make sure that the horizontals are horizontal, and that the verticals are vertical.
We need the right gear that helps us to take the photos that we want to take. If you want to know any more about the tripod and tripod head that I use just send me an email – sales@rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk.
6 Grey card
A grey card is a simple thing that I use to help me get the white balance correct. And the grey card that I use is not actually a card. BUT IT IS GREY. Again, if you want to know more get in touch.
Basically, I take a photo with the grey card in, and then in Lightroom I use that to get the white balance correct.
Nice and simple and works a treat.
That is it for gear. Really that is all that I use most of the time. And while gear is important there is so much more to this. Than gear that is.
7 What type of building photography do you want to do?
Well, there are a lot of buildings, so how do you narrow it down? To start with photograph buildings that you like, buildings that you want to photograph, buildings that you are interested in.
Practise is the key here. Go out and enjoy yourself.
But if you want to be more specific here are a few genres of photography that you can concentrate on.
8 Architectural photography
This is what I do. I photograph completed buildings for architects.
Architectural photography is broader than just photographing completed buildings though. Architectural photography is about all aspects of photographing buildings, with an emphasis on the architecture, design, location, context.
And let’s not forget photography of buildings with interesting architecture.
9 Construction photography
Well, here I am specifically referring to construction sites themselves, and the various stages of the construction process that lead up to the completed building.
This is a fascinating specialism, which requires specific equipment for not only your camera but you as well. And you will need to work safely on live construction sites, another subject all of its own
10 Construction product photography
A niche within a niche. I have done a lot of this, photographing products for construction product manufacturers. I have photographed products from some of the biggest names on the planet, such as Dulux, Rockwool, Catnic. Yep big, big global products that little old me has photographed.
11 Real estate photography
Photographing buildings for real estate agents. You know, you are looking for a new house – these are the photos that I am talking about. This is another of the things that I do, I have even written a course called “How To Become A Real Estate Photographer” – check out the courses page of my website if you want to know more.
And there is loads of info on my website all about real estate photography.
12 Commercial premises
Commercial premises is a massive area. If you think about it, any premises where there is a business is commercial premises. So, lots of them, and lots
And let’s not forget that these premises probably need photos at some time during their life as buildings.
13 Buildings in nice places
Yeah, buildings in nice places. I love photographing them. This Is what I do when I am on holiday, I photograph buildings in nice places. And I love placing ordinary buildings in exotic, spectacular, unusual locations.
It gives my travel photography a twist, a different angle.
14 Any other buildings?
Well, any other buildings are up for consideration. And we can broaden this to infrastructure buildings, engineering, and this takes us on the road to industrial photography.
And the good news is that for all of these things you can use the same gear, the same camera settings, the same techniques.
15 OK – how are you going to take the photos?
You need to decide how you are going to take the photos. What are you looking for? Do you have a style in mind?
Possibly not, so go out and take loads of photos of buildings and in time you will get what I am on about here.
But there are some technical things that need to be considered.
16 Camera mode
What mode do you use to take photographs of buildings? I use AV Mode, where I choose the aperture and the camera chooses the shutter speed to give me the correct exposure.
I use this for most of my work, reverting to manual mode when I need to, and for personal stuff I might use Program mode.
Up to you of course, but AV Mode is the one for me.
17 Aperture
F8, or F16. F8 gives me the depth of field I need for most of the photos I take. If I need more depth of field I might go to F16.
And F8 gives me the highest quality, which is very important to me. And that is why I use AV Mode, where I select the aperture and the camera chooses the shutter speed.
18 Shutter
My camera is on a tripod, so it does not matter to me. I am photographing buildings, which are not moving. But if I shoot handheld I try to keep the shutter speed above 1/60th second.
You need a fast enough shutter speed to get super sharp photos.
19 ISO
ISO 100. I use ISO 100 whenever I can. The lower the ISO the higher quality (potentially) of the photos. The higher the ISO the higher the chance of noise and other bad stuff.
But if you need to push the ISO to get a fast enough shutter speed so you don’t get a blurry photo then do that.
Or put your camera on a tripod like me.
20 Focus point
You need to decide where to focus to get what you want sharp. I am talking about from front to back here, also known as depth of field. A great rule of thumb is this – focus about 1/3rd into a composition and you should get most of the photo sharp, when photographing buildings using 17mm on a full frame camera that is.
This rule of thumb works for me for the photos I am taking with the gear that I have using the settings that I have told you.
21 HDR/ auto bracketing
I take three photos, one the correct exposure, one two stops over exposed, one two stops underexposed. I merge them together in Lightroom.
Why do I do this? I get more of the light stuff, and more of the dark stuff than I would with a single image capture.
And no, it is not a bad thing using HDR. Call it auto bracketing and it is more socially acceptable. But the same thing.
22 Self-timer
Yes I use a self-timer to take the photos. I can do this as my camera is on a tripod, and this means that I press the shutter release, and then 10 seconds later the photos are taken. The camera is dead still and there is no movement blurring photos.
23 Processing
Processing photos of buildings needs to show buildings faithfully, accurately and flatteringly to their best. No funkiness, well you can if you want but not for client photos unless they have asked for them.
But definitely no grungy HDR nonsense. No, those days are thankfully a long way behind us.
24 Lightroom
I use Lightroom to process my photos. Well, Lightroom does so much more than that. Lightroom is where all my photos are safely stored and organised. Lightroom is the ecosystem where I spend most of my time.
And yes I am a paying customer, paying my £9.98 for the Photography Plan, which I am more than happy to pay. I can’t give a higher recommendation than I am happy to pay for something.
25 Horizontals and verticals
You need these to be correct. You need to accurately represent a building, true and vertical and level. A wonky photo of a building is no good to anyone, especially a client, and especially an architect.
26 Basic processing
I do all of this in Lightroom. And I do not do too much, I am enhancing what is there and no more. SO basic processing is all I do, the most technical thing is getting the building vertical and level. The rest is subtle improvements and enhancements, and of course extracting every bit of data and detail out of every photo that I take.
27 Remove stuff
Remove stuff that should not be there. I do this all the time when I am photographing completed construction projects, as there is always stuff left that has not yet been cleared away.
For client work I will only remove things that will not be there when the site has been properly cleared.
28 Photoshop
I use Photoshop to remove stuff. That is all. Lightroom does for me. And I am fine with that.
29 Change the sky
If I have done a shoot and it was overcast I might change the sky. And this is fine for me – the sky replacement is realistic you would never know that I had done it. And no this is not misrepresentation. This is making the best of a photo of a building, which after all at another time would be sat under a nice bright blue sky.
30 Luminar
I replace the sky using Luminar AI Sky Replacement, a wonderfully intelligent tool that gives me incredibly realistic skies quickly and effortlessly.
OK that is it
That is all I have to say, But I said 50 things right? OK only 20 more things to go. Just kidding. Gear, taking the photos, processing, this is just part of the story.
And here is the other part, the possible bigger part.
31 Become a student of composition
Learn composition, become a student of composition. As I like to say, composition is king. Composition determines what is in a photo, and just as significantly what is not in a photo. And how the elements of a photo relate to each other. And how the light features in a photo, and how the light affects the various elements, highlighting textures and providing depth.
So important. Composition is what is in a photo.
32 Become a student of architecture
Well, why not. If you understand your subject better you will be able to take better photos. It just makes sense. Study architecture and you will learn about the different components of a building, which will help you when you are photographing buildings of architectural interest and significance.
33 Look at photos of buildings
I am rubbish at this, but promise that I will do this myself. Look at photos of buildings, especially good ones from reputable photographers. Study these photos and you will learn what they were thinking, what the intent behind each photo was.
And what makes a good photo of a building, which help you to create your own.
34 Decide what you want to be
What do you want to be? Do you want to make a living from photographing buildings? Or do you just want to take snaps of buildings? Do you just want to photograph buildings on holiday? Or do you want to go all in and make it your life’s work?
Each of these is absolutely fine.
35 Choose your own style
This comes with time. You need to take loads of photos of buildings and see if there is a pattern to the photos, if there are things that are common to a series of photos.
My style evolved over time, after I had settled on the camera settings that I used, and how I processed my photos. There were also some sub-conscious things that were pointed out to me, such as how I fill the frame when I take a photo.
36 Practise, practise, practise
The number one way for you and me to improve our photography is to go out more and take photos. That is my very strong opinion, and the thing that I recommend that you do.
Practise, keep on practising, keep on learning.
37 Work on your own style
I touched on this before. It may be that a style emerges out of the photos that you have taken over a period of time. Or that you settle on a consistent processing workflow that produces similar results time after time.
Or you might consciously work on a particular style, a particular way of composing photos, a particular set of camera settings. A particular way of processing images.
Be aware of this and let it happen naturally, and if it does not work on it.
But be aware of it.
These things both happened to me.
38 Study the greats
Again, I am rubbish at this and could have done so much more of this had I known that I should have done.
Study the best photographers of buildings, they are not hard to identify. Look at their work, read what they say, learn from their experiences.
39 Learn the rules of composition
Rules of composition is not a term that I like, I prefer to call them guidelines, but they are commonly known as the rules of composition. Check them all out, as there are some not so obvious ones that you might be able to apply that will help you come up with your own style.
And there are the obvious ones such as “rule of thirds” and “leading lines”. These are very helpful in getting great, interesting compositions.
40 Practise you photo taking techniques
Once you have worked out the best way to take photos of buildings practise this until it becomes instinctive. That is what I did years ago and now when I am on a commercial shoot the one thing that I do not need to worry about, or even think about, is how I take the photos.
This is so well practised, and so well defined that it is automatic and instinctive.
This is what you need to be able to do if you want to be a professional photographer of buildings.
41 Critique your work
This is not easy. You need to teach yourself to be your worst critic. You need to able to be brutally honest with yourself about each and every photo that you take.
On commercial shoots I create a lot of OK photos, well I am working to a brief so I am not getting portfolio shots every time, and I am ok with that.
But I still critique my own work whenever I have the time, so analyse what is good and what is not so good in every photo.
Top tip here – try to work out what you do not like about a photo. This can be easier than trying to find things that you like. You look at photos in a different way, and this helps your thought processes. Give it a go and see how this works for you.
42 Get someone else to critique your work
Even better. Get someone who knows their stuff, who is an authority in photographing buildings, and ask them to critique your photos. The difficult bit here is who?
Well my first formal critique was when I applied to join the BIPP – the British Institute Of Professional Photography.
This was one of the most valuable lessons in photography that I have ever had, and taught me how to look at my photos properly, honestly and critically.
43 Enter competitions
Yeah well why not. See what happens. What have you got to lose?
Doing this was good for me – I entered a few architectural photography competitions thinking that I was great and guess what? Nothing.
This grounded me nicely.
44 Get in touch with people
Find people who know about this stuff, get in touch with them, ask them questions. Most decent people will get back you and answer any questions that you may have. Don’t be scared, just be nice.
Get in touch with me anytime. I get people writing to me asking me questions all the time and I always get back to them.
See the photography world is in general a nice place where people like to help each other.
45 Find what you love to do
This comes with time, doing lots of different things and finding out what that thing is that is for you. If you know what that is great, but try all the things that I have told you about here because you never know, your thing might be something that you do not even know about now.
Have an open mind and try stuff and your thing will reveal itself to you.
46 Do what you love to do
When you have found your thing do it. Learn it. Practise it. Become excellent in it. And how knows where this might take you.
Do this and you will be setting yourself above most others doing what ever your thing is.
47 Get social
I am not the biggest fan of social media but you and I would be foolish to not embrace it and use it to grow as photographers, content creators, maybe even influencers.
Not my strong suit but just cos I don’t love it does not mean that it is not for you – far from it.
48 Get yourself out there
Go beyond social media, there are lots of other places out there where you can get yourself known.
49 Be you
What is your USP? That is unique selling point/ proposition – whichever you prefer. It does not matter.
I will tell you want your USP is.
It is you. There is only one you. There is only you who sees things that way that you do. There is only one you that thinks the way that you do.
So be you. Be more you than you ever have. I am doing this right now, putting more me into everything that I do.
50 – Enjoy yourself
Photography is something to enjoy. I have been doing photography for over 40 years now, and love it more now than ever.
And if you enjoy doing something you will do it better than if you do not so at every turn, with every decision that you make with your photography, make sure that enjoyment of photography is part of it.
Just writing this is a joy to me – I am in a very privileged position of being able to write and talk about photography and people actually listen to me.
Enjoy photography. Simple.
OK that is it. I am done.
Check out my website for lots more on photographing buildings, and in particular these
pages.
Construction product photographer
My podcast
Sorry, I have to mention my small but perfectly formed Photography Explained Podcast. All my own work, and something I am very proud of.
My You Tube Channel
Sorry – one more thing. I have my own You Tube Channel, and you can watch me talk about this post in this video.
Thanks for reading this, and for being here with me.
Any questions get in touch via my website. It would be great to hear from you.
Cheers from me Rick
